


free falling (into your arms)

by swishandflickwit



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Episode: s03e16 The Southern Raiders, F/M, Hesitancy, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s03e16 The Southern Raiders, Zutara, Zutara Week, Zutara Week 2020, comin at you early cuz i couldnt wait!!, does this count as a song fic? lol, i mean if you squint - Freeform, i wanted to join zutara week but ran out of time!!, i wanted to put so many water descriptions, katara & zuko friendship, katara & zuko talk about bloodbending, made it work???, maybe idk you tell me lmao, no beta we die like men, rambly iroh-channeling zuko, so dont read if that bothers you ig??, so many, somebody stop me alkfldkf, started this before i knew about it so just kinda, supportive!zuko, touchy-feely katara, zutara week day 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25589221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swishandflickwit/pseuds/swishandflickwit
Summary: She longs for purchase and in this slippery turmoil, it is him who grounds her.Him who is her anchor in this howling monsoon.following the events of the southern raiders, katara & zuko steal a bit of time together before they reunite with the rest of their friends.
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 111





	free falling (into your arms)

**Author's Note:**

> you know what gets me about tsr every time? it's when katara and zuko hug and it was like they'd done it a million times before and after that, touches between them became not frequent exactly but _easy_ and maybe being almost murder buddies does that too but idk, she wanted to murder _him_ .02 seconds ago and now they're co-parenting everyone else and i was like, something _more_ had to have happened right? in the journey between whale tail island and ember island and from when zuko left katara to pick up the rest of the gaang _something deeper had to have happened???_ i cannot fathom it otherwise. i simply _refuse._ and so, this mess was born lmao. also we saw katara giving zuko a very tasteful peptalk, i wanted him to give her one too, ~~one first?~~ but like, make it cute and rambly.
> 
>  **title and lyrics (and fic inspired by) from:** [Away From The Current by Keiko Necesario](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E03a2CkCRkM) (such a zutara song, _seriously_  
>  **other song inspirations:** [my tears ricochet by Taylor Swift](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWbDJFtHl3w)

> _little by little i'm falling, deeper than the sea_
> 
> _maybe you can swim with me_

They are gone before Yon Rha ever opens his eyes.

They dash away with a speed that leaves her breathless, everything around her a blur made even murkier given the deluge upon them.

(they run faster still yet never farther it seems, and she hates, hates, _hates_ until the feeling chokes her, _consumes_ her, although she doesn't know at what ~~whom~~ , and she hates that she hates at all) 

And she cannot recall how her hand finds its way into Zuko's but she is grateful anyway—grateful because his grip is warm, pleasantly so even if they hadn't already been entrenched in the growing cold of the rain. The heat of him keeps her shivering at bay, the calluses that shape his palm slot in the grooves of her own lifelines and hold her aloft when her feet tangle in the flood and cobblestone.

She is grateful because as they race towards sanctuary his grasp—skin surprisingly rougher than how she imagines a prince's touch would be—becomes the only thing preventing her from greeting the dirt like an old friend. She is grateful, for if their fingers hadn't been twined—however clumsily—then nothing would stop her from floating away with the torrent of her element. There is smog shrouding her until both her vision and her brain is clouded. She longs for purchase and in this slippery turmoil, it is him who grounds her.

Him who is her anchor in this howling monsoon.

The thought is wild; even incomprehensible just a day ago when he was clearly the embodiment of her torment—the spawn of a tyrant, the heir of the destruction that brought about her mother's demise. His is the face of the Enemy, yet she does nothing to stop the proclamation from sharpening in her fogged-up mind.

Not now when the line between who he _was_ and who he _is_ grows more indistinct with every second she spends with him, not now when they have come so far with just each other to rely on. Not now when she’s lost count of how many times she nearly tumbles, her name tearing from his lips in a frayed yet concerned hiss that she knows she has not earned. And most definitely _not now_ —not when he has witnessed her at her most cruel, engaging in an act so vile she swore never to utilize it and yet and yet and _yet._ She brands the word _hypocrite_ onto her soul as penance but it is a feckless measure because she _knows,_ even if it sickens her, that she does not—she _does not_ —

(she might as well add _coward_ there too, since she does not, _cannot,_ finish this line of reasoning)

(it is quite possible though that she is being too harsh on herself, like she always is. after all, she remembers how zuko's eyes had merely widened as he understood what her bending had done, what _she_ had done, yet he had not so much as flinched.

he simply carried on.

her guilt however, prevents her from truly conceiving this and she buries the brief awe that had sparked in the prince's gaze, then, and juxtaposes it with the terror she had expected—that which she truly deserves)

The sight of Appa has her knees weakening so that she is collapsing into the shelter of Zuko's arms. It’s as if her body likens the presence of the bison to safety, granting her permission to crumple, to _break_.

Not that Zuko allows her to, not really, not in the way she expects.

Appa wields the pair of them upright as Zuko braces against the bison and she against the firebender. It allows him to clutch at her with a desperation that borders on painful. With the entirety of her weight supported by him, she finds that he is just as calescent as the tenure of his hold suggests. It would console her, strange as the source of it is, were it not for the sheer, cold fright that arrests his otherwise golden orbs. The consolation does come however, when she discerns that it is not her he is frightened of, no. But he _is_ frightened.

He is frightened _for_ her, and the strangeness, too, evinces when she is humbled by the realization.

"Katara," he gasps when she clamps staunchly at his biceps.

"G-get me out of here," she stutters, no longer able to temper the tremble in her voice nor the shaking of her limbs, though the chilly outpour has far to do with either instance. "Get me out of here _now._ "

He nods, the haze of distress aborting from his stare. But before he can board them both onto Appa, she transfers her clench from his arms to the collar of his drenched, ebony tunic and says, "Don't."

 _Don't take me back to them,_ she means to relay. _Don't let them see me like this,_ she silently begs. _Not yet not yet not yet,_ please _not yet._

But the words are frozen in her throat, weighed by dark, dark things—things like shame and disgust and panic and a numbing _cold_ —so only one word escapes her in a whisper, an aborted sob, that she does not expect him to hear. But stranger still (or, at this point she is coming to learn, maybe not so) is the increasing understanding that continues to dawn on his expression, and which manifests itself in an assertive nod.

He is scooping her into a bridal carry when a renewed hysteria grips her, her wicked musings seeing fit to torture her in her fatigue. _What if he misunderstood? What if he brings me to the others? What if he tells them?_

(a smaller, but no less clamorous, part of her adds, _what if they hate you—what if_ he _hates you?_ )

(not that she could bare the others' judgement any easier but the prospect of his hatred being directed at her in addition to theirs just _grates_ and she feels like shattering)

With the dregs of her dwindling vigor, her digits tighten on the cloth around his neck—the movement not to harm when it comes to him for once, but a bid to further explain herself. Zuko is unfazed by the storm brewing within her, ever a growing paragon of sympathy.

"I know a place," he vouches gently—surefooted in a way that is becoming familiar to her when the early morning light comes, loathe as she is to admit it before _(strengthen your root, aang)_ —and equally soft in her ear, "Trust me."

 _I do,_ she longs to vow, but the ice inside her grows and the promise is taken with the rushing wind as he grabs the reins and takes off.

The loss of him is jarring.

It should befuddle her. Given their less than stellar past, _Zuko_ and _proximity_ had always been in the context of situations she would rather forget—on battlegrounds, and glowing prisons, and more recently, safe houses with separate rooms and large common areas, along with the very saddle they sit on. Before that, it had been open fields upon which they would assemble their singular tents. They meet and they share spaces, but hardly do they ever touch.

(and while ba sing se is a memory she is coming to terms with, it is one that still slightly smarts and therefore, one she does not count)

Up until recently she was more than fine with this arrangement. They gave each other a wide berth, and everyone was, if not happy, _content_ for it.

But in this new and mystifying _After_ , when she falls like liquid and he is the only solid thing to catch her ~~(and cup her and hold her and keep her _together_ )~~, the previous avoidance feels petty, stupid and childish—never mind that they _are_ children.

(not that she's felt that way recently, if she ever felt that way at all)

In the _After_ , the switch from her frigid distance to his succoring cradle, while abrupt, is the furthest thing from unwelcome.

So, she whimpers when he motions to settle her atop the bed of the saddle. The way he carries her has them the nearest they've ever been to each other—her every downy curve pressed against the hard lines of his lithe yet lean figure. She wants to lose herself in the embers of his gaze. She wants to melt into his skin. She wants to burrow in his inner warmth and never come out, anything to thaw the glacial stalactites that have snared her insides.

Later, she will acknowledge that her sudden attachment to his fire has less to do with his actual ability to provide heat so much as it has to do with her need to cauterize the atrocity that mars her soul. Now though, in this tenuous yet bright _After_ , with him as her only source of light in the darkness that suffocates her—he seems both close and not close enough. It's any wonder then, that the moment they both touch down from Appa, she clings to him.

Though it is her who slumps into his arms again, she knows she catches him off guard. She can tell by the way his breath stutters and tension suddenly seizes his every muscle, while his heart beats a staccato rhythm in his chest. She gets the fleeting impression he is a stranger to affection despite the love he so blatantly harbors for his uncle when he speaks about him. Katara, nurturing by nature, determines right then and there to rectify this post-haste. So, cling she does, like a newborn panda-koala to its mother. 

At some point in their journey, the rain abates. The air is sweltering in this Fire Nation island he has taken her to, and still, she clings some more. She is unyielding yet tender in her embrace, until she senses the incredulity dissipating from his aura, until the tautness dissolves from his bones and sinews, until his heart slows in repose, until the glaciers that make up her blood—not melt, precisely but—soften enough that she can feel beyond her trepidation, until the incalescence of him steams the water from their clothes and seeps into her skin.

It is as much awkward as it is dulcifying, but neither is inclined to let go. For the first time since they had embarked on the mission, perhaps even so far as the first time since they met… they can both finally, properly _breathe_.

He holds her and she holds him, until the sun from which he channels his own energy draws towards the horizon, the effulgent curves of the inflamed heavenly body sinking to kiss the sea. The cold creeps ever closer yet never over her.

How could they be so bold? When Katara falls asleep in the arms of the firebender prince.

* * *

The moon is high when she awakens next.

Yue is full, beautiful and blinding against the inky sky and yet, she is alone.

A new bout of dread rushes through her, the ice in her veins solidifying with terrible alacrity to accompany the tumult of her insecurities.

 _He left, of course he left, he knows what you can do,_ snarls and spits the cloying thing residing within her that which she fatuously assumed had been temporary. _He knows who you are,_ what _you are, and he fears you._

_He is right to do so._

A twig snaps and her head swivels towards the sound. With a shudder of relief, she alights upon the vision of Zuko appearing from the tree line that borders the inner edge of the beach, Appa not far behind him. There are offcuts of leaves in the bison's gargantuan mouth and a pile of firewood in the prince's arms. Her eyes dart briefly at the bonfire dancing sedately a few paces from where she lies, but mostly they drink him in.

Zuko had been muttering quietly to Appa but at her scrutiny, he stops. When he locks onto her, he offers a pallid smile (though with the shadows playing at his visage, the turn of his lips is more grimace than anything) and a similarly tentative, "Hey."

"You—" she murmurs, stilted and rigid as she works to swallow the residues of her panic. "Don't—" and there's that awful word again although this time, she manages to get the rest of the ~~request, demand, plea~~ sentence out. "Don't leave."

(the words _me_ and _again_ are unspoken yet heard just as loudly and acutely as if they had been shouted)

"I won't," he is quick to reply. Still, she is not assuaged, even must fight to prevent her hands from reaching for him. It makes her feel pathetic. Katara has always been free with her affections and in turn has never been in want for touch. So, to crave Zuko's—of all people—warmth is an occurrence she never could have foreseen, insatiable avarice warring against her leaden contrition especially now that she knows, with incontestable surety, how they fit together. Her rapacity presses for victory, so much so that she resorts to sitting on her hands to further quell the urge to wrap herself around him.

Assurances made, Zuko resumes tending to the fire while Katara distracts herself by ruminating on her newfound regard for the prince.

(conclusions are drawn but the significance of them has her repelling the revelations just as rapidly as they are made—to be dissected and inspected by the katara of later)

For once, she is static as Zuko navigates the tedium that comes with setting up camp. With the fire done, he unfurls their sleeping bags at a respectable distance. He follows this with a careful inventory of their provisions, and when the stock is accounted for, he dishes out the appropriate rations (seal jerky being the sole menu as they had neither time nor patience to scrounge for anything more the night they left). He even goes so far as to pet Appa and confirm the bison's comfort, a palpable if subtle bond there that she allows herself to recognize at last. There is a naturality to his gestures that would fascinate her had she happened upon it any other night. As it is, she is still a tad too miffed—her head swimming in agitation from having woken up thinking she was alone—to fully appreciate his initiative.

She reaches for her bundle of jerky when she notices the state of her hands. As a result of sheltering them amongst the fine grains of the ground, they have surfaced dusted with sand. Zuko notes this at the same time she does with a startled, "Oh!"

She is about to voice her puzzlement at his reaction or even dismiss the mess as an inconvenience easily solutioned when he jogs to the shallow depths of the sea. There he shreds parts of the bottom of his tunic before dousing them into the ocean. Upon his return he kneels before her and, with a consideration that mesmerizes her, wipes her palms with the waterlogged strips.

She novels at the various means with which he astonishes her, and might continue to astonish her, during their—now indefinitely extended—period together.

He dabs cautiously at the grime and scrapes clinging stubbornly at her flesh, something rusty yet accustomed in his body language—like the intimation is a fragment of his past, however long forgotten.

Distantly, she registers that Zuko is an older sibling. Maybe not exactly like Sokka, but a big brother all the same. She tries to picture Azula—not as the elegant, cunning, _dangerous_ princess she knows now—but younger… _softer…_ before power and bloodlust planted its insidious roots and sprouted weeds. Was there a time her eyes shined with fondness instead of anger? Where she had whispered sweet words, not to manipulate but, to share in her mirth? Did she ever come to Zuko like this, dirty and bleeding, certain he would know what to do to soothe her hurts away?

She tries to conjure it and fails miserably. If anything, she is more disturbed at the prospect that Zuko might view her as something like a sister. Though a part of Katara knows how irrational it is to fixate on such an inconsequential surmise, an even bigger part of her bristles.

She feels it then.

The frost that she so adamantly hoped was chased away by Zuko's fire, surges with renewed vigor inside her. It twists into that something dark and ugly, something that has been haunting her all night—one Katara knows but is reluctant, _afraid_ , to name.

Zuko is blissfully unaware that he is the subject of her grisly musings. He runs the cloth over her palms with the same intensity he seems to tackle his every circumstance, his swipes relentless in their bid to rid her skin of impurities. Then again, she expects no less from the firebender who persistently chased them across the world only to just as doggedly proclaim his loyalty to their cause. What throws her off however, is the determined patience he exhibits so as to avoid her open cuts, for no other reason she can think of than to prevent the inevitably harsh sting of the saltwater on the wounds—never mind that the scratches are no larger than a fingernail at best and as long as that of her thumb at worst—his cleaning caress focused yet light.

The purposeful care would endear him to her, if the thought that he might see her as a sister-figure didn't enduringly unsettle her so.

He is close to finishing when the dark thing inside her rattles to make itself known.

"I can do it myself."

But the whispered grievance lacks the vehemence with which such a statement is usually made. Perhaps that is why Zuko doesn't completely halt so much as slows. His clasp on her hands grows even looser, the miniscule shift in his hold telling her that she may breakaway at her leisure.

"Right," he breathes when she doesn’t pull away. "Waterbender."

The title chafes her, glass shards piercing at her chest in a way that simultaneously encourages her rabidness and makes her want to crawl out of her body. Again, the inclination to fuse herself onto Zuko and his feverishness becomes an unbearable need. Now that she has gotten a little more than a couple of hours of sleep, she has enough sense to be embarrassed for her rather enthusiastic tenacity to adhere herself to him earlier. She should be loathe to so much as breathe the same air as him, yet here she is again, just as eager and willing to meld into his incandescence with nary a thought to his convenience.

(it’s situations like these that she cannot deny her relation to sokka—much to her chagrin—because clearly, _she is an idiot_ )

But her pride and common sense impede her impulse ~~for now~~ so, on somewhat imperceptibly wobbly legs she walks to the shoreline, hoping the proximity to her element will infuse her with tranquility.

(or in this case, what little is left of her _sanity_ )

Shoes tossed aside and her ankles deep in the water, Katara moves into her stances with an almost paralleled elegance to her element. The exhaustion that has latched onto every inch of her, down to the very marrow of her bones, hardly strains her when the moon imparts her with the strength she necessitates to go through the entirety of her bending repertoire. More than anything, she is further compelled by the prospect that the familiar maneuvers will dispel the slithering sickness that pervades her.

Except… she can feel _him_ , his breath, ~~his _blood,_~~ his stare. He is watching, just watching, and it unnerves her so much that she loses her instinctual fluidity the more complicated her katas become, no matter that as a master she could easily do them in her sleep.

Just then, a particularly exuberant tide slams into her knees and disquiets her balance just as she is approaching the pinnacle of her most complex stance. And although she wavers only a little, her toes immediately hasping onto the seabed, it's as if a dam inside her caves. The profundity of the night's events crashes into her so it is less like she had stumbled and more like she had capsized as a ship does from the enormity of a storm—turbulent and impuissant against the raging current.

 _What have I done?_ she sobs in her mind, even as her power—exorbitant from the fullness of Yue's grace—crests in response to her distress. It thrums like wildfire through her veins, yet she has never felt further from calidity.

No, it is not a fever that grabs hold of her.

 _What have I done?_ she asks again when it is the deadly frost of winter that bites at her soul. From the ocean of her anguish, her _grief_ , ascends a tempestuous tide that shapes into that of her repulsiveness. Everything about herself that she abhors, every repugnant crack that splinters at her perfection, at her supposed _goodness_ , all the jagged pieces she runs herself ragged to keep smooth and hidden, boils to the surface in choppy torrents of her bending.

With the endless expanse of the sea at her disposal, Katara crimps her fingers until she traps herself in a barricade of ice. The structure is flawless, her reflection undisturbed and perfect.

How she hates and hates and _hates._

With a scream, Katara raises her arms above her head, the roughness of her motility entirely contrary to her element. The ice around her begins to fracture then, her image fragmenting so that the ugliness carefully concealed in her interior is mirrored upon her exterior, free from the shadows at last.

 _This,_ she decides, _this is what I have done._

A swelter licks at her back but it barely warrants her contemplation. The entirety of her attention is fixated on how the fissures distorting her glass shadow paint her in harsh, unflattering angles, and yet she has never felt more right.

She wonders what that says about herself… how she very well knows even as she asks it, and what scares her isn’t that she is afraid of the answer but that she is _not._

“Enough.”

His command, soft and gentle as the steam it is carried on so it is less edict and more entreaty, pierces the condensation she hadn’t heeded was gathering at her feet until it is right in front of her. She should be vexed, maybe even surprised.

But Zuko always did have a way of making himself seen—of making himself _known._

“That’s _enough,_ ” his rasp is even deeper, seared as it is by his concern of which she is still unused to receiving. His fingers on her shoulder are preternaturally warm this time, but it takes all of her not to lean into it regardless. “You’ll hurt yourself!”

“Isn’t that what I deserve?” she growls, tearing away from his grasp only to turn towards him so that he bears the omneity of her depravity.

The time for hiding, at least when it comes to the prince, has long since come to an end.

His eyes widen, and she almost smiles at his predictable fear—except he is reaching for her once more, a mixture of confusion and vehemence dripping from his inflection instead when he exclaims, “Of course not! What are you talking about?”

Something like hurt flashes across his eyes when she jerks from him again, her back thudding forcefully against her ice wall. His perplexity echoes throughout her so that she retorts, just as stridently, “What am _I_ talking about? What are _you?_ ”

The question in his eyes is genuine and unfading, and Katara wants to fall into him all over again just for that. But she holds on to her anger, coats it around her like she would glazed armor to defend against the sheer magnitude of him.

“Y-you saw what I did,” she hisses but when he shakes his head again, she falters against the smooth, rime palisade. Who knew all it took to defeat her was a pair of amber eyes molten with sincerity? And that it would hurt her ~~if~~ when the seafret weight of it—cozy like a blanket made from her Gran-Gran’s hand as opposed to the armor she sheaths herself in—slips from her fingers like vapor, gone as quickly as she had it, if she ever had it at all?

She wonders why she cares.

(except she knows the answer to that, too)

“You know what I am,” she mumbles dejectedly.

“And what is that?” he whispers, equally muted.

It is only when she stills at the question that she notices she was quivering in the first place. She closes her eyes, like the act might suppress the truth despite how fully aware she is of its inevitability.

She stalls. A step, a pulse, a blink, and then—

“Monster,” she breathes.

She convinces herself that she is not petrified of what she will see when she meets his gaze, so she forces herself to look.

To her surprise, he isn’t looking at her at all and it confounds her so much she forgets to be relieved.

It is their sorry encampment he is facing when he says, “Come by the fire,” and he doesn’t check if she follows but he does incline his head over his shoulder enough to add, “I don’t want you to freeze any more than you already have.”

She wants to tell him that should be the least of his worries, that ice would be the furthest breach to her downfall. But the quip sounds paltry even in her head, and the fact that he _still_ worries silences her just as effectively.

She doesn’t know what to do with herself when he sits but the nonchalance in his demeanor—legs held loosely in the lotus position, his arms propped lazily behind him, and his head tipped placidly at the sky—presents an invitation. Even if it isn’t, his propinquity tempts her.

He is gravity and, as she has well proven, she is helpless against his pull.

“Say something,” she implores from beside him, the bonfire void when nothing but a foot separates them, the emanating heat she siphons from his skin is more than adequate to fend off the brisk, night air.

“Yon Rha is alive.”

“Death would have been too kind for a spineless vermin like him,” she blazes through gritted teeth, before the fight leaves her altogether. “But that’s not—” she sighs. “He’s not _why_.”

“You’re talking about the soldier on the ship.”

“I swore,” her speech is warbled even in susurration, “I swore I would _never_ call upon my power that way. I promised, with my brother and my best friends as my witnesses, but the first opportunity away from them presents itself and what do I do?” Her eyes are red-rimmed and crusty from the volume of tears she had shed the previous night, and yet a fountain must reside within her for tiny rivulets of them stream down her cheeks anyway—the more she wipes them away, the faster they fall. It is her turn to shake her head. “You must think I’m a monster too.”

His scrutiny is scorching when he abandons his seemingly languid perch to render the plenitude of his attention on her.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he responds evenly.

“I don’t? How dare you!” the resuscitation of a still embittered memory has her erupting from her position and kicking up sand as she abruptly rises to her feet. That he remains seated, countenance so calculatingly neutral his resemblance to his sister has never seemed more evident, only fuels her ire. “I took this man’s will. I reached into his blood, his _life source,_ and I commanded it as my own. I _corrupted_ my bending and nearly defiled him for it. And maybe he wasn’t innocent, but he was innocent to me. Who knows what I would have done if I hadn’t realized he was the wrong man? Would you have stopped me then? I can’t imagine you would have when you just stood by as I almost murdered _another_ man in cold blood! What then?” her chest is heaving with her fervency, but her declamation is a mellifluous contrast to her beginning parlance. _“What then?"_ she sags back down to the ground in a boneless heap, rubbing at her wet cheeks in vain, and she is _so tired of crying._ "It was monstrous. _I’m_ monstrous.”

“Maybe you did do a monstrous thing,” he starts solemnly, “but that doesn’t make you a monster,” his inflection is just as subdued as hers, and it doesn’t escape her that this entire night he has matched—if not capitulated to—her, motion by motion, tone for tone; that he ducks low when she aims high, is cool when she runs hot, and spirited when she falls into despair. It’s like he views them on equal footing, like he never intends to be above her, only _with_ her. She finds that she is moved by this revelation, something emotive and electric pulsing rapturously at her fingertips. But before she can further delve on it, he continues, and the poignancy scatters like ashes in the wind in the wake of the sorrow on his tongue.

“I should know, I grew up around them,” he laughs but it is the sound of broken glass, so pained and humorless it scrapes against the cusped contours of her own smattered heart. “There are days when even I can’t distinguish _myself_ from _them_. So, believe me,” his fingers ghosting his scar. “There are worse things a monster can do than grant mercy.”

“I’m sorry,” she conveys staunchly, and she means it. They have danced this dance before, so she is no stranger to the ridges that separate smooth skin from marred one when her digits trace the worn pathways. “I’m sorry,” she repeats.

“Don’t,” he gives her hand a squeeze when he slips it from beneath hers, before placing it on her knee with some semblance of propriety, remnants from his days of royalty she supposes.

(she refuses to entertain the more conceivable possibility that it is a repeated unaccustomedness to touch, lest she track down the firelord and prematurely end this war, avatar or not)

“Don't be. Not for me, not for tonight, not for _anything_.”

She doesn’t know why she protests but she does. Is this not what she wants to hear? Does she not want this vindication?

“But the bloodbending—”

“Is just another part of you.”

“A bad part,” she mutters, demeaningly.

His cautious veneer ruptures at this, the sneer contorting his mouth so evocative of the days when he was her adversary that she almost summons a spear of ice out of habit. But the ardor in his aurelian orbs and the passion in his smoke-encased voice arrests her in the present, so that there is no mistaking the reproach in his homily, yes, but the _acceptance_ too.

“Could the nomads not command the very air that passes through your lungs? Had the Dai Li not thought twice about burying you alive? Wouldn’t you be able to drown a foe just as easily as you could conjure your healing water to save them? Is destruction all there is to fire, when it can also warm you and cook your food?” he snarls and as if in demonstration, the roaring pit before them blazes for a fraction of a second before resuming its indolent conflagration. “Every element has their strengths and their weaknesses, every person their good and bad side,” he stares at his hands, elbows propped limply upon his bent knees, and something despondent and regretful dulling the sparkling tinder in his eyes. “Some bad sides, stronger than others,” he finishes quietly.

 _“I don’t regret it,”_ she confesses, and she should be humiliated by this admission that has been clawing at her chest and choking at her throat. But all she is is unbothered, unbound—more airbender than water for the first time in her life, and is this how Aang constantly feels? Is this what propelled him to leave the day his destiny was revealed to him? Not that she did then but how could she ever blame him now, when this liberation was so exhilarating?

“Still doesn’t make you a monster, though.”

“But does it make me a good person?”

He sighs, rubbing at his nose in a pantomime so boyish, it disarms her. For a moment she forgets who he is and who she is and who they are to each other.

_And what is that exactly?_

“I think it just means you’re trying,” he shrugs. “We've all got the potential for darkness and lightness within us, our powers just as capable of tipping towards either side. But I guess the question for every moment is, to which side are you going to choose to be a vessel for? Or—or maybe it isn't so clean cut. Maybe it's just about finding the in-between, the…” he trails off, appearing lost in thought as his gaze trains on the skyline, like he might find the wayward reverie there.

She thinks back to the aftermath of the siege of the North, remembers Aang orating similar advice.

 _Push and pull…_ he had imparted, _yin and yang…_

“Balance,” she hums.

He gives her an appreciative glance that she perceives all the way to her bones.

“Yes,” he agrees. She can almost sense the connections cultivating in his brain and she lets it, not daring to interrupt him when she is so enchanted by this scarce sight of an artless but enthusiastic Zuko. “No one is wholly good or evil, but it’s the choices you make in seeking your inner balance that will ultimately define you, right? And I know what you’re gonna ask—did you make the right choices last night? Honestly, I couldn’t say. I think you’re the only one who can really answer that.” He takes a deep breath, biting at his lips before venturing gingerly, “Far be it from me to pass judgement, but I need you to know that I could never… see _you_ like that. You’re scary, sure, and I think you like that,” she hides a satisfied smile at that, at how he reads _her_. “But a monster? Spirits, _never_.” He runs a hand through his hair, before rubbing at the nape of his neck. “You didn’t have to spare that—that— _asshole,_ but you did.” There’s a blush to his cheeks that she only understands when he remarks, “And not that my opinion really matters to you but, you’re seriously one of the strongest people I know.”

And something inside her clicks into place as the validation she didn’t know she was seeking washes over her in gentle eddies. She doesn’t feel strong just then, the total opposite, in fact. But his unyielding support sedates the foreboding mass of algid tenebrosity inside her, if only for a little while, so that she resembles something a little like _solid_.

“Actually,” she gibes, however feebly. “I was gonna ask how a hothead like you got so wise.”

The little gust of wind that escapes him is not exactly a laugh, but she counts it as a victory all the same. “My uncle would have better insight for you. I mean, it would probably be wrapped in an enigma tied in a tea-related metaphor, but no less helpful.”

"I don't know," she drawls, though not unkindly, as she bumps her shoulder amiably against his. She relishes the contact when he doesn’t shift away. "You're not so bad."

"I'm not?"

The vulnerability in his resonance tells her his inquiry goes beyond his ability to provide advice, and after everything he's given her this night alone, it is only fitting that she is more than willing to reciprocate.

“No, no I don’t think that at all. I dare say,” she smiles, sinking into his side. “You, Prince Zuko, are _good._ ”

“Good,” he mouths disbelievingly, as if he never thought the word could be tethered to him, like no one’s ever called him that. Maybe they haven’t, which saddens her because she may as well have been one of the reasons for that. It's just another thing to add to her growing list of what she hopes to do for the fire prince who has not received enough warmth and kindness in his life, as she is gradually discovering. “Never really been good at being… _good_ ,” the upturn of his lips is self-deprecating but the candor of it lends a light to his face that makes its former absence even starker, but no less stunning in its rarity. “You know that more than anyone, and for that _I’m_ sorry. Truly, I am.”

“You’re trying,” she parrots, and his smile widens minutely, but it is enough. She akins it to the sun, peeking from the horizon after days sequestered forlornly behind storm clouds, and she is esurient for the homeliness his warmth is sure to supply. She doesn’t know it, but it will be a long time before she sees even a glimmer of it again. For now, she basks in his glow, until the ice strangling her core melts into liquid into mist except before she can evaporate, _he_ is there to moor her to the safety of port.

Her fingers drift within reach of his scar and this close to him, breaths mingling and noses a hairsbreadth apart, she can make out the misshapen shape of a hand. There is a story there, a tragic one, no doubt. And she hopes he trusts her the same way she unequivocally does him (for how can she not after what they have been through and what they have exchanged? and she will tell him, _she will_ ) to one day divulge, but not tonight. She does not want to taint the effulgence of this moment with any more talk of darkness.

She only wants his charming guilelessness, no matter how unintentional, and his graceless chatter. She wants the domesticity of his hands and the honor of his brand of protection. And if you had asked her two days ago, her answer would have been completely different but now, _now_ she revels in his mercurial temper as much as she values his ardent humility.

She just wants to be present as he continues to _try,_ and what more could she desire from a friend?

It shouldn’t, but it hits her like a riptide; he’s her _friend_. And it’s been inclement waters seeing as they had to maneuver all the way from opposite sides of the battlefield to a necessary alliance to a revenge-driven field trip. And it shouldn’t be the most peculiar thought of the night, certainly not the most astounding, but it is. _It is_.

After so long chasing each other across the world, he is _here_. He is here and he is her friend, one who is privy to a side of her she had kept shackled and secreted, even from herself and still he understands, still—

He _stays_.

“I know I’ve asked so much of you already, but can I ask just once more?”

He doesn’t hesitate. He’s her friend and she is his and it is nothing like she has ever known before. It is hard-earned and precious and marvelous.

It is _everything_.

“Anything you need, Katara,” he avers most earnestly, eyes burning with companionship and hands outstretched in pillars of support. “Anything I can give and it’s yours.”

(and, if the buoyant churning in her gut is any indication, maybe even _more_ and oh, Tui and La, but she is in _trouble_ —)

She follows the elongated indents of his left palm, tracking the lines there that had aligned so exquisitely with hers as he banished every reluctancy and held her hand even then, and is overtaken by a flashback—to a village bordered by a volcano, a similar position but in reverse, _a powerful bender_ suddenly thunderous in her head.

(—not that she’s ever buckled from a challenge before)

Yue’s brilliance is kind on him, coloring his pale skin ethereal so that it shimmers otherworldly against her own sun-kissed flesh. The nobility of his lineage is subtle, found mostly in the sharp slant of his nose, his jaw and his cheekbones. But his beauty and his potency lies in the abstruse, the unseen. It is in the way he makes awful tea and shares jokes of which he only knows the punchline because he knows it is the best way to honor the person he loves most in this world. It is in his pursuit to make amends even when the road to redemption is shabby and difficult, or that redemption means cleansing the grime from the hands of a slip of a girl who once hated him. It’s his tenacity to get up no matter how many times he is beaten down.

“I don’t _need_ anything,” she reassures him, her cadence shy when she requests, “I would like it if we stayed here though.” Her timidity, so inimical from her former gusto, almost paralyzes her now but she braves cupping his left cheek anyway, fingers cosseting the edge of his mark. “The two of us, just a little longer.”

“We’ll stay as long as you want,” he accedes. This time, he isn’t a spectator to the affection, nor does he recede from it. To her delight, he leans into it, to _her,_ going so far as to envelope her hand with his so that her touch becomes a halcyon balm upon his scored side. “Anything, and it’s yours,” he recurs with quiet insistence.

He _is_ the sun, unfailing and true, and it is from his radiance that she allows the yearning to bloom.

 _And you?_ her heart is a riot beneath her ribcage, but—in the aftermath of so much struggling, both of the internal and external kind—her smile is miraculous in its serenity. _What if it’s you that I want?_

“Good,” she says instead, wishing with all her might that he hears the veracity behind her hushed yet no less steely declaration. “So very _good_.”

The way those pools of gold soften, his other hand brushing delicately at the last of her errant tears, tells her he does… that he might just _believe_.

* * *

As much as she wants to suspend time, war stops for no one and she can no longer ignore the suffering that rages on beyond them.

She knows who to blame for the impetuous loss of her innocence, that it is the cowardice of power-hungry despots that have forced children like her to the frontlines of this hundred-year persecution. She knows the futility of this knowledge because justice is not hers to serve in this case, it is a burden she shares with thousands upon thousands of others. And when judgement comes for the depraved likes of Yon Rha, Zhao, and Ozai, she will have to contend with the bile that bubbles in the back of her throat and the sin splicing her soul because for them, she has no forgiveness to spare.

But _Zuko_ …

_I’m sorry. Truly, I am._

“I _am_ ready to forgive you.”

 _After_ _,_ the last of her abiding hesitancy to accept him bleeds into purpose-filled promise when she throws her arms around him—her head at his shoulder, cheek nestled at the hollow of his throat, his breath hot on her neck, and his hands large and comforting at the small of her back—it is as natural as breathing and as prevailing as her heartbeat. This is how she breaks—a tundra seizing her lungs and a storm in her mind that threatens to drown out the light until the inferno in his touch razes the darkness and reminds her to breathe, to reach out, to stand tall, stand _steady,_ and this is how she mends, too—her waters fresh against his raging anger, cool and calm and healing the burns that have pained him, mind and heart, body and soul. It is pieces of her latching onto the pieces of him, until they are in adept symmetry, crowning harmony.

A perfect _balance._

And although it is him seeking forgiveness, she cannot help but feel that it is her who finds absolution.

Right in the circle of his arms.

> _in the cold, i feel your warmth_
> 
> _i’m free falling into your arms_

**Author's Note:**

> first zutara fic asdfghjkl hope you enjoyed it! also its been a year since i wrote anything so im a little rusty pls go easy on me rip.
> 
> lets cry about zutara together sksksksk so pls come say hi to me on [tumblr!](https://swishandflickwit.tumblr.com/)


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